Palm leaves turning yellow/brown, just moved here. Any ideas?

swedeoneMarch 21, 2007

Hello!

I moved to Port St. Lucie Florida a almost two months ago. I have three large palm trees in my front yard and one in the back. I had them trimmed when I got here but now, several of the leaves are turning yellow and/or brown. I put Epsom salt on them yesterday but also read it could be a lack of iron.

I don't want to do any damage to the trees and want them to get beautiful, green leaves and be healthy. I will be landscaping the yard as well soon, this will be a place I hope I can get some ideas and help. I never had a yard I could landscape before and am looking forward to having the chance to make this beautiful :)

I think the experts are going to want to know what species of palm you're talking about. Can you post some pics?

You say "several of the leaves are turning yellow"... are they the oldest leaves? That would be natural.

Any idea of how established the palms are? Were they recently transplanted by the seller of the home for curb appeal? If so, its possible that you have too many fronds/leaves for a newly transplanted palm. You say you had them "trimmed"... if that meant removing the oldest leaves, that is the right thing to do. But recently transplanted palms should have only two or three newest leaves emerging. All others should be cut off.

By the way, the "needle palm" makes a wonderful under-story shrub palm and is completely dependable. It grows as a clump and only gets to be about 10 feet tall. There are both blue and green varieties available.

Our palms down here were hit hard by the cold, it created a fungus in the heart that if untreated will kill the tree.
It can somtimes be treated by pouring a copper based fungiside directly into the heart (the top of the tree inside of the palm fronds) if it is a coconunt palm it probable can't be saved. My Dad lives in Palm Bay and lost all of his, even a 25 foot tall well established ones. The rest of the palms we were able to salvage.

I planted a large Washington palm tree a month ago that came in a 32 gallon container. The plant was aggressively pruned and had only 5 leaves. The soil does not have a good drainage so to overcome I dug a hole about 4 feet diameter 3 feet deep and filled it up with a well mix of volcanic sand, compost, perlite and some of existing soil so the plant is sitting on at least one feet of well drained soil. I also applied organic palm fertilizer. After drowning the newly planted tree making sure there are no air pockets, I scheduled the timer to drip 6 gallon of water per week (4 x1galon emitters). I went on vacation and 3 weeks after all the leaves are getting yellow starting from the tip of each leaf. The center leaf is still green but getting yellow at the tip of the leaf. Any idea? I can include a picture if that helps.

I live in CO, and bought a couple of palm trees for a party in our backyard. After a few days in the sun, the fronds on the tallest one started turning brown. It did better in the shade. In Oct. I moved in inside where it gets very indirect light in our lower level of our tri-level. It's in a 12" pot. I pruned all the brown leaves/fronds off. About half the leaves/fronds still look green. Was pruning the brown leaves a good thing to do?